


Just A Few Hours

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Firefighters, Radiation Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 17:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20157301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: Climbing the roof of the turbine hall and stopping the fire from damaging a second reactor... at a terrible, terrible cost.





	Just A Few Hours

It starts out like… like a really bad sunburn. Something like that.

This is a pretty weird fire. I never saw one like it before, not in Pripyat or in Moscow when I was in the army. It’s blue. The smoke is blue. Nobody says anything about it, though, we’re too busy. I can already see what needs to happen, Volodya will give the order for us to climb the roof. We won’t be able to reach with the trucks. But how to get there…? There’s so much crap lying around down here, some of the ladders and stairs got ripped down by whatever it is that happened.

My face feels like a sunburn. So do my hands, my feet are aching. I’m not sure why. I was sleeping pretty well when the call came… just a few hours, I would’ve been on a pass headed for Sperizhe to see my parents and plant the spring potatoes. If this happened just a few hours later… but I don’t mind that much, once I can go home I’ll be able to go to Sperizhe. It’ll be annoying because I’m tired. I don’t mind. I love my job. My parents built me a new house there, but then I joined the army and became a fireman. I can’t imagine anything else, now. I love Pripyat. I met Lyushenka there, too. So I’ll do what I have to, here, maybe have a nap. We’ll go a little later than we planned, that’s all.

There’s those black chunks all over - what are they? Some of the guys are talking about it, but nobody really knows for sure. A few of these black things are on fire, the water just flies right off as steam, so we have to stomp them to put them out. Each time I step on one, each time I even get near, my feet ache a little more. It’s strange.

When we climb the roof, my sunburn is getting really terrible, my uniform is rubbing my skin and it hurts. My hands throb, my head pounds. My face feels like when an arm or a leg falls asleep, that prickling feeling. I once put coins in my mouth as a kid - I remember how it tasted back then, because it’s on my tongue again now, it’s all over the inside of my mouth and when I spit it doesn’t go away.

The roof is a nightmare, one of the worst and most difficult kinds of fires. I’ll be here until morning at least, the whole thing was paved with bitumen and it’s burning. The parts that don’t burn have started to melt, too, so it gets all over everything, our hoses and boots. Every time we walk forward it gets harder, we’re kicking and stomping just to get forward a few meters. I stop for a second to throw up, there’s some disgusting feeling in my body that suddenly happened while I was climbing and now it won’t stay in anymore. The guys are throwing up around me, too. It doesn’t matter. We keep going, pulling the hoses through the melted roof and blasting at the flames. There’s more of the black things, too, burning. We kick them, they won’t go out, it’s too hot and if they move more of the roof goes up with them. Stamping on them takes forever, we’ll be up here for a long time bothering with this crap.

One of the guys from another station goes down - he lies there in the tar, vomiting, one of his comrades has to drag him away. We’re all sick, I guess, it’s not just me, not just my guys. Something’s going on. My legs and arms barely want to move. I feel like all my blood got sucked dry, it’s too hot. Hotter than a normal fire. This isn’t normal. Nothing about this is normal.

Someone’s talking - why is the smoke blue? Why is everyone throwing up? I look for him, he’s not from my brigade. His nose is bleeding and he has to keep letting go of his hose to wipe his face on his glove. He passes along the nozzle to someone and sits, just for a second… except it’s not a second. He doesn’t get up again. One of his guys carries him away. One of my guys leaves, too, he limps away for the stairs. I don’t know if he can get down on his own but I have to stay here, too many of us are going down already, I have a job. I need to stay no matter how sick I feel.

I throw up again, all of us are sick, most of us are bleeding from our noses by now too. We advance two more meters. Volodya kicks some more of the black stuff, I think it’s just because he wants it away from him. He kicks it and kicks it until it tumbles into a spot that’s already burning, a spot that doesn’t matter so much.

The hoses are like the anchors on ships. I’ve never been on a ship, but I saw pictures in books when I was a kid, everyone said they were really heavy. That’s how my hose feels. It’s how my boots feel, too. Everything’s too heavy. I’m a strong guy, I’m very healthy, I’ve worn this gear and this uniform since I was 17 years old but now I can barely move under it. The blood from my nose runs into my mouth, I try to spit but my tongue is too dry. I’m so tired. I want to go home and lie down for awhile.

Volodya can’t shout orders to us anymore, now he just moans the words, we can barely hear him. At least, I can barely hear him. My ears feel like they’re stuffed with cotton and every time I walk forward it gets worse and worse. I wonder if it’s the black chunks, Misha burned his hand on one. Maybe they’re doing something to us. If we kick them and stomp them enough, they stop burning, but it takes so long. Our boots are covered in bitumen, we start blasting them with water to get it off just so we can walk again. The water hitting my feet hurts, but that’s not really a fair thing to say because my feet hurt to begin with, and so does the rest of me. My skin feels like it wants to come off.

Volodya, now, sits down for just a second. It’s not really for a second, he doesn’t get up, he has to climb down like the others but he can’t seem to move. Without him I’m in charge. There’s just four of us now from my brigade, a few others from different stations. I don’t know their names. Their faces are red now that the sky is starting to get light again. We’re all sick, we’re all bleeding. I don’t know how we’re still standing up. I want to sit for just a second, for a second that I know won’t actually be a second. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I know I won’t get up again. It means I need to stay up, in place of a second I have a job to finish instead. No matter how my hands don’t want to keep holding this nozzle, no matter how my back aches, no matter how my skin burns or how my stomach turns out the wrong way or my legs shake inside my pants.

I advance us, the guys from my brigade. Others advance too. We got most of the roof, it’s just those black things all over the place that won’t go out. We’re still trying to blast them with water even though it doesn’t work, just long enough to get close so we can start stomping. I kick and stamp the last few pieces, thinking how I’ll have such a story to tell my father when we get to Sperizhe this afternoon, once I’ve had a nap and something to eat.

My guys are all sick. All the guys are sick, though, not just mine. I’m sick. I could lie down and fall asleep for the next two days, right here in the melted roof. My sunburn is a terrible, painful itch under my gear and my clothes. I help Kolya get to the stairs, he’s shaking and he throws up on me. I give the order: the roof is out. We can go home.

There are more firemen on the ground, talking and yelling. I report to Telyatnikov that the roof is out, he congratulates us but says there’s something still burning in there. So, I can’t go home, but my guys need to, they’re too sick. I help Kolya to the medics, we get him on a stretcher. Vlad helps me carry him. We’re almost to the ambulance.

I really need to sit, just for a second.

The ground flies up to meet me.

**Author's Note:**

> This incorporates quite a few details from the life of the real Vasily Ignatenko.
> 
> Incidentally, I have autism and the Chernobyl disaster has been my object of study for over twelve years. I'm extremely nitpicky about the HBO miniseries and there were quite a few things that I felt they didn't do justice to, as well as - again - nitpicks like how the firemen wore the wrong uniforms. The Pripyat and Chernobyl fire brigades had black and white rubber turnout gear, not the brown canvas with black rubber shoulders that you see in the first episode. Remarkably, one extra in those scenes IS wearing the right suit if you look closely, so I have to wonder what the costumers were thinking.
> 
> Comments are welcome.


End file.
